Jobless Rates Rise In All US Metro Areas In March

JEANNINE AVERSA

WASHINGTON (AP) — Unemployment rates rose in all of the nation's largest metropolitan areas for the third straight month in March, with Indiana's Elkhart-Goshen once again logging the biggest gain.

The Labor Department reported Wednesday all 372 metropolitan areas tracked saw jobless rates move higher last month from a year earlier. Elkhart-Goshen's rate soared to 18.8 percent, a 13 percentage-point increase. That was the fourth-highest jobless rate in the country.

The Indiana region has been hammered by layoffs in the recreational vehicle industry. RV makers Monaco Coach Corp. Keystone RV Co. and Pilgrim International have sliced hundreds of jobs.

The jobless rate jumped to 17 percent in Bend, Ore., a 9.2 percentage-point rise and the second-biggest monthly gainer. Bend for years has been the center of the central Oregon real estate and construction boom, largely fueled by retirees from California. Many of them bought vacation or retirement homes in high-end rural developments called destination resorts, which the state began allowing in 1984 as an exception to land use laws that otherwise aim to preserve rural land from development.

The credit crunch and falling home prices have made it harder for retirees to cash out of their existing homes. Part of the area also features easy access to skiing, mountain biking, hunting, fishing and golf. But as unemployment rises, state analysts have cited weakness in the service and entertainment sectors.